The number and types of electronic devices available to consumers have increased tremendously the past few years and this increase shows no signs of abating. Electronic devices, such as portable media players, storage devices, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, all-in-one computers, wearable computing devices, cell, media, and smart phones, televisions, monitors, and other display devices, navigation systems, and other devices have become ubiquitous.
Moreover, options for some particular devices have also proliferated. For example, for a particular device, the size of an internal memory may be an option. Other functionalities, such as video or graphics cards, network or cellular connections, and others, may also be made available as options or as possible upgrades. This may allow a manufacturer to offer products at several price points, and may allow customers to buy only the amount of functionality that is required to suit their needs and to possibly upgrade at a later time.
In these devices, various options may be added by including an optional or daughter card or module inside a housing of the electronic device. These optional or daughter cards or modules may be attached to a main logic board or motherboard. Specifically, these optional or daughter cards or modules may be attached to a board inside the electronic device housing using a connector.
Unfortunately, these connectors consume space inside the electronic device. This consumed space may increase the size of the electronic device or reduce the functionality that could otherwise be included in the electronic device. Also, data rates among devices in these electronic devices have increased tremendously. Using a connector may degrade signal quality and reduce the data rates to a lower frequency that may otherwise be achievable. Further, these optional or daughter cards or modules may inadvertently become dislodged when a force is applied to the electronic device.
Thus, what is needed are connectors that can be used to connect optional or daughter cards or modules to main logic board or motherboards in electronic devices. It may also be desirable for these connectors to have a reduced effective height and be able to support high data rates. It may also be desirable that they may be secured in place in an electronic device to avoid being inadvertently dislodged. The cards themselves and supporting boards are needed as well.